By Mary-Louise Small
Copyright © 1997
Reverse Speech is called the ‘Seventh Sense’ as well as the ‘Ultimate Lie Detector’. It reveals exactly what you and others really think and feel, no matter what is said aloud. It is hidden in the sounds of normal human speech and has already been used by police, therapists and those who want to know what people are really thinking. The man who discovered it, Australian researcher David John Oates spoke to Marie-Louise Small.
Ever since the Beatles’ famous “White” album was released with the hidden backward message “Paul is dead”, the world has been fascinated with subliminal messages. There’s been talk of Satanic messages in popular music and of subliminal messages on our television and film screens. Yet new findings reveal we all have subliminal conversations most of the time – backwards – and because we don’t have conscious control over those messages, they are far more revealing than we could ever imagine!
The founder of Reverse Speech®, David John Oates says the human brain constructs the sounds that form intelligible language in such a way that at least two verbal messages are committed at the same time: one forward, which is constructed and heard consciously and one in reverse, which is constructed and heard unconsciously and which stems from deeper realms of the human psyche. Reverse speech can only be heard aloud if human speech is recorded and played backwards. Oates, who sells the backward playing machines, has produced video and audio cassettes of the backward conversations and the Reverse Speech® words and phrases are quite clear albeit different from ‘normal’ speech.
“Imbedded in the sounds of human speech, once every five, 10, 15 seconds, occurs a very clear, precise grammatically correct phrase that is communicating our real thoughts and feelings,” he says. Those words or phrases are called ‘speech reversals’ and they occur backwards. “As emotions increase, so do reversals, so that in an intense argument, they can occur once every three or four seconds. And they aren’t formed by the actual words we use in our speech: they are formed by the sounds of our speech. It’s got nothing to do with reversing the letters of the words or the actual words. So for example, you can find reversals in laughter or cries or deep breaths. It normally occurs around the stutterings and stammerings of speech.” Even if two people say the same phrase aloud, the speech reversals will be different.
Reverse speech complements forward speech so that if you are talking aloud about the weather, for instance, your Reverse Speech® will also be about the weather. While forward speech is under our conscious control and can be manipulated and altered, Reverse Speech® is not under conscious control and always communicates the truth of any situation.
“It’s so logical that Reverse Speech® should be there. Unconsciously, we have a need to communicate. The way it works is that the subconscious mind creates a picture as you talk and Reverse Speech® is the audible expression of this unconscious picture.”
Over 90% of all Reverse Speech® language is metaphoric. Metaphors, words that are symbolic or pictorial, increase in frequency the more emotional dialogue becomes. They represent emotions and thought processes from deeper regions of the mind. Oates has already documented over 1,000 common words or phrases that appear in Reverse Speech® . Among them are archetypes and metaphors such as Odin, Goddess, Naked, Ocean, Wolf and Whirlwind. He believes that Odin means to succeed with struggle and hardship; Goddess is hope about the future; Naked is a willingness to be exposed or freedom; Ocean is the waters of life or circumstances; the Wolf is the protector-hunter; and Whirlwind is energy or power.
“The implication of this discovery should be obvious. It essentially means that the human mind is no longer private. Reverse speech gives us a reliable and easily accessible means to look inside the mind and listen to the thoughts of others, including thoughts that are not conscious.
“Reverse speech is an extra sense of the human brain that has previously been undiscovered and undocumented. It is a learned function from birth and its existence explains many forms of human intuition and previously unexplained paranormal phenomena. In its simplest form, Reverse Speech® functions as an audible truth detector. If a lie is spoken forwards, Reverse Speech® will correct that lie and communicate the truth. If someone leaves facts and details out of forward speech, Reverse Speech® may communicate those facts. Speech reversals will speak about any topic on the person’s mind. These can include the names of friends and lovers, events of the week or month, plans for the future or any other real thoughts and real feelings.”
Humans learn to speak in reverse many months before they learn to speak forwards. From about the age of four months, children begin to utter simple, single words like ‘Mummy’, ‘Daddy’, ‘hungry’ and ‘help’ in reverse. From six to seven months of age, they begin to put two or three words together in a sentence and from 12 months, they begin to adopt metaphors, based on interaction with parents, extended families and other people.
“If we were to play a tape recording of ‘baby talk’ backward, we would find words and simple forward phrases in the gibberish – as early as four months – before the baby has ‘officially’ learned how to talk forward,” he says.
Discovering Reverse Speech
Oates was the Director of a privately-funded halfway house for teenagers in the small South Australian town of Berri. In 1984, some of the teenagers were upset because of what an American evangelist had said about rock ‘n’ roll. The evangelist had visited the nearby city of Adelaide, and claimed that not only was rock ‘n’ roll the Devil’s music but much of it contained backward Satanic messages. Oates was both intrigued and annoyed by the evangelist’s message for the teenagers in his care were obviously scared by the assertions.
“I calmed the kids down and went home that night to investigate and debunk the whole thing,” he admits. An active amateur radio operator and electronics enthusiast, Oates found it easy to rewire some stereo equipment and listen to the music. He found one of the suspect tracks and played it backwards.
“To my complete surprise, an intelligible phrase appeared to be there.” Oates spent much of his spare time in the following months playing audio tracks forward and backward to find the hidden messages. He soon realised that while some of the messages had been deliberately placed on the records through a process called back-masking, there were identifiable words and even phrases among the gibberish that had obviously not. Back-masking is a recording technique where the studio superimposes a soundtrack backwards over the forward soundtrack.
“My initial concern was that it was all in my imagination, like the pictures you see in inkblots,” he recalls. “I was wondering whether I was going insane or whether this was truly a unique discovery. It took me two years to be convinced that it was real. I found that the reversals occur regularly and that they were always related to forward speech, either adding to it or contradicting it. After recording different people, I found that their reverses revealed what they were actually thinking or feeling. How can that be a coincidence? I picked up names of family members and friends, things they had done in the past. Things I couldn’t have known otherwise.”
He continued to investigate backward speech through recorded music and speech. “With overwhelming and irrefutable evidence of numerous backward messages in both music and speech, I became convinced that we had discovered another form of communication.”
In 1987, Oates and Greg Albrecht published a book on their remarkable findings called “Beyond Backward Masking: Reverse Speech® and the Voice of the Inner Mind”. A year later, the Australian Government awarded Oates a research grant. He had some articles published on the subject in America and followed them up with a lecture tour and later moved there to live. He now operates a Reverse Speech® therapy and training centre in San Diego and correspondence training courses. In 1991, he published his second book, “Reverse Speech – Hidden Messages In Human Communication”. Since then, he has written another book, “Reverse Speech: Voices From The Unconscious”, and recorded audio and video cassettes.
Reverse Speech In Action
What we consider to be evidence of psychic or paranormal ability may really be Reverse Speech® in action, Oates says. “I think Reverse Speech® will provide a scientific explanation for many things that we now consider to be paranormal or psychic. They are only ‘paranormal’ because we have not yet seen what it is that causes them and my whole approach with Reverse Speech® is that it is a natural function of the mind. We can prove this and validate this. It will show us how a lot of these things take place. Like ESP for example.”
He believes that Reverse Speech® is conducted on high frequency sound waves which we hear on a subconscious level. Therefore, what we called ESP might just be our ability to subconsciously hear high frequency sound waves.
“When it comes to one-on-one conversations, people are continuously communicating in both reverse and forward speech. Entire conversations can be carried out in reverse,” Oates says. “We are recognising those audible unconscious messages as ‘intuition’. How do you know when you meet someone that they are lying about something? You are receiving their speech reversals which tell a different story from what they are saying forwards. How many times have you been in a conversation with someone and before you say something, they chip in and say it first? You already told them in reverse, one or two minutes earlier.”
Reverse speech could also be used to check the validity and accuracy of Remote Viewing, he adds. “As Remote Viewers speak their results, let’s tape them and the speech reversals will show us whether the results are pure or are tainted by their belief systems. Reverse speech provide a checkpoint. It will enable the viewers to check themselves to see what belief patterns they have.”
Moreover, Oates believes Reverse Speech® is a latent ability that all humans have and that Reverse Speech® could be used to access and trigger the parts or functions of the brain that could carry out Remote Viewing.
Talking Of The Future
Speech reversals can predict future events up to six months in advance, says Oates. He calls them ‘future tense reversals’ and says they are almost always accurate unless the person concerned changes their behaviour in a profound way. “They predict future outcomes in our current physical life. They are very accurate up to six months in advance, chillingly accurate. I have learned over the years to take note of future tense reversals. I would say without exception they always come true. I don’t believe they are a psychic prediction as such but it is the unconscious mind that knows all and that understands the person and the state of the world and can look at all likely scenarios and predict an accurate outcome based on current information.”
Prophecy for the Millennium
Oates believes many End of the World prophecies have been misinterpreted and in fact, refer to the end of our current ways of behaving.
“A lot of the prophecies are metaphoric but they have been taken literally. A lot of the prophecies I believe refer to the things in the unconscious mind rising to the surface and the traumatic events that will come about as individuals and nations are forced to look at themselves truthfully. People are predicting earthquakes and that California, for example, will drop into the ocean. What that really refers to is the awakening of consciousness will happen in California and that will be a major shock.
“There will be a nuclear war of self. An explosion within ourselves. Far from being our damnation, it will be our salvation. It’s like a teenager goes through puberty to become an adult – it’s a hell of a stage to go through with thought patterns and emotions going chaotic. What’s going to happen the human race will have to grow up. It will be traumatic.”
Reverse Speech & UFOs/ETs
Oates has conducted numerous interviews with alien abductees and has found a few who he believes are telling the truth.
“There are those who are deliberately lying and some who are relaying a fantasy that is the manifestation of a psychological trauma that they are putting into a UFO experience. But then there are those who are telling the truth.
“There’s no doubt that these ETs exist however I don’t think we fully understand what they are. We are trying to interpret them with our current level of human understanding. Reverse speech refers to them as being more of an energetic rather than a physical presence. There is an energetic telepathic connection. There is no doubt that the people who are being abducted … call them in. They want to have it happen. We are misinterpreting what they are and what they are here for.”
Unlike False Memory Syndrome (where patients recall fictitious events as if they were real), it is not possible for patients to lie in Reverse Speech® , says Oates. Even if a person believed vehemently that they had been abducted and they hadn’t, that would show up on speech reversals as conscious misperceptions.
“You can tell the difference between what is a conscious belief that is nonetheless a fantasy and what is a real event.”
Everything You Say Will Be Taken Down In Evidence…
Its ability to weed out fact and fiction is what makes Reverse Speech® so attractive to the police. Oates has worked with both the Australian and American police forces on a few cases but believes more research is necessary before law enforcement agencies accept it as a valuable crime-fighting tool.
“I would like a police department to put Reverse Speech® through a trial. Its potential as a law enforcement tool is just monumental. It needs to be tested. If you are a criminal, the more you lie, the more the truth is going to come out in reverse.”
A bad experience with the Dallas police force a few years ago put him off pursuing the matter further. “I did some work with the Dallas police and I was warned in no uncertain terms not to tell anyone about my involvement with them,” he recalls.
However, three years ago, during the Waco siege in Texas, the FBI asked him to do a Reverse Speech® analysis of religious sect leader David Koresh.
“They gave me some tapes and I submitted a report. It basically said that he (Koresh) would not come out. The reversals I did on Koresh predicted great disaster if the FBI stayed there. I said the only way to get him out was to send in his mother or grandmother. I submitted that report to them through separate channels – one in Dallas and one through a friend of mine in Washington. No action was taken.
“Koresh was a man who wanted to be believed and listened to.”
Unfortunately, his advice was not heeded. The 51-day siege ended tragically: there was a gun battle between Koresh’s Branch Davidians and the FBI, the Mount Carmel compound, in which Koresh and his followers were holed-up, was burnt down, and four FBI agents and 80 sect members died.
“If someone had negotiated with him on what he was saying the disaster wouldn’t have happened. They (the FBI) just got so pigheaded about it that I blame them totally for what happened. I saw the compound burn down on TV and I was horrified. His reversals were very plain.”
He had previously helped the New South Wales police force locate a murder weapon and the Dallas police to help locate the body of a murder victim.
“The speech reversals said it (the body) was in a creek bed under a tree. The police went there and the body had been there but then subsequently moved.”
After taping much of the broadcast trial of O.J. Simpson in the US, Oates’ interest in using Reverse Speech® to help law enforcement officers has been revived.
The Future Of Reverse Speech
Reverse Speech has been accepted in Australia and America by many, particularly in the field of therapy, but Oates has come under fire from some quarters. Three years ago, he even received a death threat.
“Some people have called me crazy and I have people who are violently against it. I have been surprised at the level of hostility against it. That puzzles me a bit.
“I haven’t had a threat against my life this year or last year but I’ve had violent attacks through letters and so on. I’ve been called a charlatan, conman, or snake-oil salesman. I’ve had some guys on the Internet threaten to start an Email campaign against me and say that they will do all they can to shut me down. They are very angry. I say to these people, ‘If this is not real, what is there to lose? Either it’s real or not real. Just write me off as a nut. If it’s not real, it can’t do any harm.’ I can’t understand the extent of the intensity of their hostility.”
Despite a death threat and being accused of charlatanism, Oates passionately believes Reverse Speech® is an earth-shattering discovery that will change the face of the planet. If it becomes common practice, it will force everyone – politicians, friends, employers, employees, religious leaders – to tell the truth out loud. No wonder some people are running scared!
Famous Examples Of Reverse Speech
In his new book, “Reverse Speech: Voices From the Unconscious”, David John Oates gives many more examples of Reverse Speech® , particularly in music. Here is a small selection of famous speeches. The speech reversals are in italics.
O.J. Simpson
Talking about taping arguments with your partner.
“The worse thing you can have, that you can ever have, is have your argument taped. I would say anyone out there that’s married and in a relationship, just turn a tape recorder on the next time I skinned (fooled) them all you have an argument and play it back. You will not believe that was you. ”
Astronaut Neil Armstrong
When Neil Armstrong fluffed his lines during his famous Moonwalk in 1969, a speech reversal could be heard. Instead of saying, “That’s one small step for a man”, he said, “That’s one small step for man.” At the point where he missed the word ‘a’, a speech reversal occurred.
“That’s one small step for … Man will space walk man…one giant step for mankind….”
President John F. Kennedy’s Assassination Coverage
A radio announcer was doing a live-to-air broadcast of President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, Texas on the day of his assassination in 1963. The broadcaster’s voice grew more excited as he became aware something had happened to the President. A speech reversal occurred at the precise moment he realised the President had been shot.
“Standby please. Parkland hospital, there has been a shooting He’s shot bad. Hold it. Try and look up. Parkland hospital has been advised to stand by for a severe gun shot wound.”
Lee Harvey Oswald
Being interviewed prior to Kennedy’s assassination
“The fact that I did live for a time in the Soviet Union gives me excellent qualifications to repudiate charges that Cuba and The Fair Play For Cuba Committee is communist controlled. Oswald angry/ Hear them. Wish to kill President.”
British Royal Family
Prince Andrew following the birth of his baby daughter, before he publicly announced her name.
“It’s very difficult to tell who she looks like but probably after her father and mother like most. My mum will love her. I love Beatrice.”
The Beatles
John Lennon being interviewed following the death of the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein.
“The Maharishi told us not to get overwhelmed by grief and whatever thoughts we have of Brian to keep them happy. Must not fear./ We can’t be Beatles now.”
Comedian Steve Martin
Comedian Steven Martin being interviewed on America’s “Larry King Show”.
Martin was told a joke and asked something to which he replied. His Reverse Speech® said, “Get f**ked. I’ve had enough.” Later on, he said, “I don’t want to be funny. I’m sick of this. ”
Comedienne Whoopi Goldberg
Interviewer: “How much fun was this movie then to do?”
Whoopi Goldberg: “Well it was a lot of fun cause I got to play with all these guys. See all the wealth that I got. I suck the money.”
Extract From “Reverse Speech: Voices From The Unconscious“, David John Oates (Promotion Publishing 1996).